Key Johnson County victories preserve Republican supermajorities in Kansas Legislature
Kansas Republicans have held onto key seats in Johnson County and appear poised to maintain veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of the Kansas Legislature.
Vulnerable Johnson County Republicans fended off challenges and GOP candidates ousted two House Democrats in the county to expand their legislative advantage, according to unofficial election results from the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office.
The GOP appears to have picked up a new seat in Olathe’s House District 15, where Lauren Bohi led incumbent Allison Hougland by 131 votes with all precincts reporting. That outcome could still be influenced by late-arriving mail ballots and provisional ballots.
Democratic incumbent Dennis Miller lost out more decisively to Republican challenger Charlotte Esau in Olathe’s House District 14 by a margin of 48% to 52% as Esau reclaimed the seat she previously held from 2019 to 2023.
Angela Stiens, who was recently appointed to the District 29 seat, bested Democratic challenger Vanessa Vaughn West by four percentage points and will continue to represent parts of Shawnee, Lake Quivira and Bonner Springs.
On the Senate side, Republicans Mike Thompspon and Kellie Warren also survived challenges. Thompson beat Andrew Mall 52% to 48% in District 10, which includes north central Johnson County and much of Shawnee. In eastern Johnson County’s District 11, which includes parts of Leawood and Overland Park, Warren defeated Democrat Karen Thurlow by the same four-point margin.
In the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Robert Olsen in Senate District 23, sitting state Rep. Adam Thomas led Stacey Knoell 53% to 47% with 85 of 88 precincts reporting. That district includes Spring Hill and parts of Gardner and Olathe.
Elsewhere in the state, GOP challengers parlayed high enthusiasm for Donald Trump into down-ballot wins over Democratic incumbents state Rep. Jason Probst in Hutchinson and Usha Reddi in Manhattan.
The national Democratic Party took a special interest in Kansas’ legislative races this year, and Gov. Laura Kelly’s Middle of the Road PAC spent heavily on behalf of promising Democratic candidates in hopes of swinging the balance of power in Topeka.
But Republicans’ strong showing Tuesday preserved lawmakers’ ability to override Kelly’s veto on a party-line vote. In Kansas, overriding the governor’s veto requires two-thirds support of members in both chambers.
In their closing message to voters, Republican leaders painted Kelly as an extremist and framed supermajorities in the House and Senate as a necessary check on her power.
“She is so committed to things like Medicaid expansion and all of that. She’s completely radical on the social issues,” Senate President Ty Masterson said of Kelly at a rally in Wichita last week. “Abort your baby until it breathes, change your sex on your birth certificate — just kind of stuff that doesn’t sit well with the general population at all.
“She’s going to veto everything we do, including the budget, right? To try to leverage us on the things that she wants in those last two years. That’s why the supermajority is so important,” Masterson said.
Democratic letdown
Democrats had high hopes for Johnson County this year. Kansas’ wealthiest and most populous county has trended to the left in recent cycles, favoring Joe Biden for president in 2020 and Kelly for governor in 2022, when voters also decisively rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have given lawmakers the ability to restrict or ban abortion.
But their bet that conservative Johnson County lawmakers’ were out of step with their voters underestimated the base of support that relative newcomers Thompson, Warren and Stiens have amassed while in office.
Reflecting on the Republican triumph, Kansas Democratic Party Chair Jeanna Repass struck a defiant tone in an interview with The Star.
“It is our responsibility to fight back and fight harder and fight earlier. We will not be deterred by having the results we were not hoping for,” Repass said.
“There’s no significant change that doesn’t come with struggles and setbacks. We will not be deterred. If anything, we’re going to redouble our efforts. We know that the impact of dark money and PACs had an effect that again belies what we know that the people of Kansas, the constituents of Kansas, want.”
At the same Wichita rally where Masterson lambasted Kelly, Speaker of the House Dan Hawkins predicted that the governor’s decision to raise and spend money on behalf of Democratic candidates would backfire and limit her ability to score legislative victories.
“How are you (Kelly) going to get anything done in the next two years? Because you’ve lied and lied and lied,” Hawkins said. “You’ve made my whole caucus mad and probably the whole Senate caucus mad. Why would we work with you when you do the things that you do?”
He said Kelly’s portrayal of herself as a “middle of the road” moderate is laughable.
“Anybody that ever believed she was middle of the road, you can get rid of that thought because she never has been,” Hawkins said. “She’s always been in the left ditch, which is where she needs to stay.”
Kansas GOP Chairman Mike Brown offered his own variation: “The only thing you get for being in the middle of the road is run over.”
Alexandra Middlewood, chair of the political science department at Wichita State University, said if Democrats had broken the supermajority, Kelly could have framed the victory as a mandate for her agenda in her final two years as governor.
“She could make the argument of saying, ‘Look, Kansans have spoken. They elected more Democrats to the state legislature. Clearly, they’re supportive of my agenda and more centrist policies,’” Middlewood said.
Instead, the preservation of Republican supermajorities means the state’s bitterly divided government is likely to remain in gridlock, she said.
“I would expect more of the status quo that we have seen the last couple of years, and maybe even a little bit more conservative than what we’ve seen over the last couple of years simply because they probably will feel that emboldened aspect of Kansans have spoken and they want Republicans to maintain the supermajority,” Middlewood said.
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 11:01 PM.
